Opinion

Letters to the Editor

Flooding concerns lead to shift in gym plan

Jenni Grubbs

Posted:
01/26/2018 01:14:34 PM MST

Updated:
01/26/2018 01:15:51 PM MST

A major change is being made to the designs for the new middle school/high school campus to be built in Brush.

While preliminary plans had called for digging into the ground and building a sunken gymnasium, that idea has been scrapped in favor of one at ground level, according to Brush Superintendent Dr. Bill Wilson.

He told the school board that the district had tried to gain assurances from the architects and engineers creating the designs that the sunken gym would not flood and have its floor ruined. But they told him they could not guarantee that would not happen.

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"No guarantees, no sense in taking the risk," Wilson told the school board.

School Board Treasurer Meg Pfau asked what the benefit in having a sunken gym would have been.

Wilson explained that the idea had been to protect the gym floor from "easy access" by the crowds of people trying to get to their seats or across the space, as well as likely allowing for a ground-level walking track instead of an elevated one.

Overall, the change will not be a big one in terms of time or money, though, the superintendent said. It should not delay the construction schedule, and it is not expected to be more expensive.

In fact, the ground-level gym could even offer some savings for the overall project.

"It will be a little bit cheaper, which should give us a little flexibility in the budget," Wilson said.

But it could present a few new challenges for the architects and engineers with how much overall square footage BEST will allow the school to have, he said. The sunken gym could have helped with that due to how such calculations are made, the superintendent said.

Still, the new gym will be mostly the same as what the school board previously heard from the architects, just higher up in the air now. For example, the locker rooms will still be below the bleachers and seats.

"There will be a few changes, but nothing the casual observer would notice," Wilson said.

The school board also heard that a ground-breaking ceremony for the project could be held in March.

"We've had pre-construction meetings every Wednesday afternoon for the last three to four months," Wilson told the Fort Morgan Times. "Within that, we've tried to establish some options for a ground breaking. ... We settled on March, but we haven't picked a specific date yet."

The school district does want the community to be invited to that ceremony, he said, including members of the Keep the Beet Alive Committee, members of both the current and previous school board and students from the high school and middle school.

A date for the ceremony likely will not be announced for sure until only a week or two before, Wilson said, since the school district will want to have an idea of what the weather might be that day.

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